It's all fun and games until someone CHEATS! or irritates me...

Maybe I'm just easily irritated today, but Dorothy was getting on my last nerve.  She did this thing where she asked if she could do something, like say, go to the park, and when we said no she pouted for a bit.  A few minutes later, she said, "So, when did you say we're going to the park?"  Uh...we're not.  She seemed perfectly content with watching t.v. today, that is until the show was halfway through and I was hooked on it.  Then she wanted to play something.

Luckily, she allowed Tin Man and I some free time and played with some Barbie dolls by herself for a while.

I did wind up playing a game of cards with her, which she, of course, gave up on right in the middle of.  We played War, which for those of you who aren't familiar with it, is a game where each person lays down a card, and the person with the highest face value takes all of the cards laid out.  The object is to get all of the cards in the deck.  It's a long and time-consuming game, but it entertains Dorothy, for the most part.  It doesn't sound like the kind of game, though, that one could cheat at, right?

Right?

Wrong.

Dorothy has mastered the art of cheating at games so well that she's discovered how to cheat at War.  She does this by passing out the cards while no one's watching, then shoving one of the decks in your face and saying, "Let's play Highest Card Wins (what she calls War)!"  When we play after that, it doesn't take long to realize that she's managed to lay out all of the cards in a way that will allow her to get all of them pretty fast.  She's even smart enough to do it so that you get a few of the cards here and there, so the game doesn't last only a few seconds.

She's too smart for her own good.

But she cheats at everything, so games aren't entirely fun to play with her.  And when you scold her for cheating, she covers her ears.  If you put the game away, she sulks.  And if you catch her cheating and make her play by the rules, she starts bawling if she doesn't win.  When I tell her to stop bawling, she runs off to sulk in the bathroom or in Tin Man's room.

She's too smart, and I'm too easily irritated.  I know this sort of thing shouldn't get under my skin like it does.  All kids cheat at games once in a while, it's just a matter of teaching them how to play by the rules.  My family's basic philosophy is that, if you win on your own, rather than cheat or have someone let you win, you feel more accomplished and proud of yourself.  We used the same principal on school assignments; my parents rarely helped me do an entire project.  They bought the stuff I needed, but it was up to me to put it together.  It helped me feel like I'd actually done something.

Yeah, Dorothy doesn't get that concept.

But, like I said, I think I'm easily irritated today, so it annoys me more than it should.